


Buried

by brasspetal



Category: Bates Motel (2013)
Genre: Character Study, Depression, Mental Instability, One Shot, Self-Loathing, Somewhere at the beginning of S5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-09 01:41:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11094255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brasspetal/pseuds/brasspetal
Summary: If this house could devour him, he’d let it.





	Buried

Norman spends enough time in the dark for it to answer back. 

He rests his face in his hands and tries to impersonate some level of normalcy. The curtains suffocate all the windows. There’s a faint dripping sound coming from the kitchen and flies have taken to the unwashed silverware. If this house could devour him, he’d let it.

The silence is a burden, one he bears every day.

“Norman!”

Norman covers his ears with the palms of his hands.

“What’s wrong with you?! Are you even listening to me?!”

There’s a place he goes in his mind sometimes. A place where things _are_ black and white. In this make-believe veil of his, a thing is either good or bad, there’s no in between. In this place, there’s light and laughter. There’s…

“NORMAN!”

“STOP IT, MOTHER!” He screams, loud with unabashed anguish.

The sound receded out of the room and he opened his eyes, out of breath and wild-eyed. There’s nothing. No one. She wasn’t here.

How long had it been? How many days had he spent sitting immobilized in delusion?  He has never been able to tell how much time he’s lost. Time was more fleeting to him than happiness. He didn’t even know how many people he’s voided the existence of. All it takes is a blink and he’d be covered in blood and muddy rainwater. He’d see the missing persons flyer, half torn, crinkled in the wind and he’d know who he buried.

He would scream and cry about it but after a while he’d forget. He’d hear her voice again; soothing and merciful. She was doing this to him but he couldn’t bear to be rid of her.

“Mother?” He calls into the quiet.

The only answer was the sound of the creaking stairs.

“Mother?!”

He stands from the couch and avoids the covered mirrors. He didn’t remember covering them. He didn’t even remember closing this place off to the daylight. He walks into the foyer and stands at the foot of the long staircase. There’s no one there and yet he heard her footsteps.

“Mother?!” He calls again and ascends.

There is light coming from her bedroom, where a curtain is open. It was shining into the darkened hall like a beacon. He moved slowly as if it could disappear. Norman wanted to catch the light like a creature, so that night may never come. It was the night and those dark corners that terrified him; so many hiding places.

He enters the doorway and the light encapsulates him with warmth. Norma was standing in her bedroom in front of the bright window, overlooking the grounds. She turns to him with a wide, cheerful smile but says nothing. It should make his heart lift but it was unnerving.

He knew her body was in the basement. He remembered putting it there. Or had it climbed up here and come back to life? Did she come back to him, like she always said she would?

“Mother....what are you doing?” He asks softly. His head is pounding, like someone had taken a hammer to it.

There’s a long drawn out silence, like the breath before a plunge.  She opens her mouth to speak and the scene cuts to darkness.

There’s a scraping sound of metal against Earth. He felt like he was falling, falling into nowhere. He feels his body hit the dirt and hears, “Do you remember the sun, Norman?”

Norman plays Hide-N-Seek with madness. He has a mind for the deranged. The dizzy delirium would never give him respite. He’d remain in the place between daylight and night. The corner, the crack, the hidden space beneath the stairs. He would always be there, wondering, waiting an eternity for someone to find him. No one ever will, he knows this.

_‘Maybe some people don’t get to start over’_


End file.
